


Kindle My Heart

by wordslinger



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-08-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 11:03:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordslinger/pseuds/wordslinger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is love without sacrifice? Renesmee finds out how strong the love of an imprint is after half a century apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kindle My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. I wrote Jacob/Nessie once upon a time. It cheesy. Bring chips.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.

I was running, my bare feet leaving no prints in the soft forest floor. The trees flew by me in green and brown flashes. The sound of my passing was barely audible. No human ear could have registered it. I could feel the wind on my face and in my hair. The rain was coming down in a steady drizzle slowly soaking me. My clothes were torn and ragged from the passing trees and shrubbery, but I didn't care. I was running. Finally.

I didn't know how long I would have until my father caught up with me. He was the only one who would be able to catch me, of that I was certain. My lungs burned with every breath, but I pressed on. I had to be sure, I had to know. I needed to see him with my own eyes. Had he really come for me?

Fifty years was an eternity to go without seeing the keeper of your heart and your soul. Not a day passed that hadn't brought tears and pain and a fresh onslaught of heartbreak. I would never forget the expression etched on his face when I saw him last. It had been one of total despair and brokenness. I remember struggling to breathe because those feelings were a reflection of my own.

The forest continued to flash before my eyes as I ran aimlessly through the trees. Suddenly, I felt a pull. The tug of an invisible, but unmistakable steel cable. I knew it well. Without ever really deciding to, my path changed to accommodate this tugging. It was undeniable, my salvation.

My breathing sped up and I felt the already erratic beating of my heart completely loose control. A sob caught in my throat as I pressed forward. The anxiety building in my chest crested in a tight knot as I broke free of the trees into a meadow, a perfectly symmetrical meadow. My eyes zeroed in on a figure standing at the far edge. At the sight of him my eyes welled with tears and I could not breathe at all.

I launched myself across the meadow and into his embrace. Large, warm copper colored arms surrounded me and pulled me crushingly close. I did not protest. I buried my face in his smooth neck and inhaled deeply. He still smelled of earth, pine, and rain. My eyes rolled back into my head as I processed this scent. Jacob.

I leaned back from his body slightly and reached up to cup his cheek in my palm. Our eyes locked, and a flood of images and emotions rushed from my memory to his. I replayed that tragic night our lives had been ripped apart, our families destroyed.

Like a slide show, I played for him a sequence of my memories. Paul and Rosalie's tragic loss of self control that ended in a mutually fatal battle, each taking the others life. Sam and Carlisle's decision that our family would leave the Olympic Peninsula forever, thus avoiding open war between The Cullens and The Quileute werewolves. The soul wrenching scene of my father ripping me from Jacob's arms, my screams piercing the unusually clear night. Sam, Quil, and Embry holding Jacob back as my father and Jasper dragged me away from him. I lingered on my final memory of Jacob, his face broken and twisted with despair.

I let him feel how the steel cable that rooted my very existence to his tugged on me every second of every day we were separated. With my touch, I showed him how desolate my existence had been without him, how very empty I had become. In a tidal wave of emotion, I showed him how I had spent the last fifty years clutching my chest in agony at the loss of him.

My choking sobs returned with these memories, I let my hand fall from his cheek. I could not go on. I pressed my face into his neck once more. His scent permeated my senses and instantly I felt centered, as if the planets had realigned just for me.

"I didn't know if you would come." Jacob's voice was thick in my ears; it had been far too long. "I just didn't know… I thought maybe… I just… Nessie…" He all but coughed out the last words and I felt him press his cheek to my damp hair. "I just couldn't stand it anymore," he whispered.

I reveled in the feel of his skin, wet as it was with the rain that had turned from a drizzle to a more formidable shower. My clothes were soaked, and I was certain that my very angry father was not too far behind me. I had broken the New Treaty, as they called it. No Cullen was to set foot anywhere on the Olympic Peninsula, I was in clear violation. But, none of that mattered. I was here with Jacob. And I was home.

I pressed my lips to Jacob's warm shoulder. I felt his hands slide up the sides of my body and thread into my tangled curls. I opened my eyes and looked up into his beautiful face, a face I had only seen so clearly in my dreams. His dark eyes bore into mine and I found the piece of myself that had been missing.

The rain was falling heavier now and the droplets were leaving trails down his broad muscular chest. His short disheveled hair was dripping in his face, but Jacob's gaze never deterred from mine. I could hear the rain pattering all around us in the forest, but I still detected no signs of my father's approach. Unable to stand the distance between us any longer, I wound my arms around Jacob's neck and pressed my lips to his.

In every fairy tale there is a kiss that tops all other kisses. That one kiss conveys all the magic of the story, and very nearly defines it. Every princess gets an earth shattering kiss from her prince. I was not a princess, and Jacob was not a prince. But, our kiss that night, after spending fifty years in hell, was more powerful than any fairy tale kiss in history. I loved Jacob more than any princess ever loved her prince. The feel of his lips on mine was enough to erase all the pain, heartbreak, loneliness, and hopelessness of being separated. My hands locked behind his neck, securing him to me. I could not stop the small sounds from escaping my throat as he kissed me.

"He's coming, Jacob, I know he is," I whispered frantically against his lips. Jacob kissed me harder as if to block out the terrible reality of the situation. "Please…" I begged him, "Please, don't let him take me away again. I cannot bear it, Jacob." My pleas turned to sobs and my salty tears laced his kisses with sadness.

"It won't happen again, Nessie, not this time." He pulled me impossibly closer to his ever warm body. "There is nothing that can tear you from me now. Never again." His voice was rough in my ear, and the sound of it made me feel safer. I desperately hoped he meant what he'd said and that it would be true. Suddenly, every muscle in my body tensed and I looked around in a panic. Jacob's body stiffened and his arms around me tightened. His dark eyes looked menacing as he focused on the trees opposite us in the meadow. My father.

"You will release my daughter, Black! Now!" I heard my father's voice before I saw him. When he finally burst through the trees and came into view, I was horrified. I'd never seen him in such a state. His golden eyes were wild and cold, his pale, marble like hands were clenched in tight fists, and he glared at Jacob with such a force. The sight frightened me and I shrunk into Jacob's chest.

Jacob's jaw tightened and I could see the muscles there clenching. He positioned me slightly behind him and took a small step forward.

"No." The authority of that one word coming from Jacob's lips was such that my father's face fell. He seemed to vacillate between rage and fear.

"You listen to me, Black…" My father's voice was low and dripping with ferocity, but his sentence was cut short and he jerked his head to the left. A low growl emanated from just behind the trees. The wolves would not betray their numbers yet, but I knew they would surely kill my father if he moved against Jacob. I did not know how long it would take the rest of my family to arrive, assuming anyone else came at all.

My resolve was unwavering, regardless of the outcome of this confrontation; I would not leave Jacob's side. Never again. Unless the angel of death himself wrapped his icy cold fingers around my heart, stilling it for all eternity thus ending my life, I would remain entangled with Jacob. He was my confidant, truest friend, protector, and lover. Our souls were two halves of the same whole. I would not live without him.

"So, that's it then? Dog?" My father's mouth twisted into a sneer, "Your pack will slaughter me in front of my daughter?" His voice was cold, unrecognizable to me. Seeing his face marred so, and hearing his voice ring hollow filled my heart with a cold fear.

"It is you and your kind who have violated the New Treaty, Cullen," a voice I did not recognize boomed from the shelter of the trees. Many of the young wolves I had known surely chose to embrace mortality so as to die alongside their mates. Jacob would never grow old and die, not as long as he continued to phase into his wolf form. I wanted him to spend that eternity with me.

"You do not have all the facts. Your Alpha, Jacob Black, sought us out." My father very nearly spit out Jacob's name, as if it were a vile poison. "He came to disturb our peace, no doubt. As you can see, my daughter has followed him back to your lands. I am simply attempting to retrieve her." His cold gaze rested on me, he softened his expression, his eyes a churning liquid gold. "Renesmee…" he whispered, reaching one hand out to me. "Please, come home. You are going to break your mother's heart." His words cut me deeply. It was never my intention to hurt anyone, but I couldn't continue existing in such a void.  
"What about my heart, dad?" I murmured, my mouth hidden by Jacob's large shoulder. I knew he would hear me. "Don't I count?" His features twisted further in his struggle.

"Renesmee, please, you cannot have this life anymore. Did Rose's death mean nothing to you?" Once again my father's words sliced right through my heart. "Does our family mean nothing to you?" He took one step closer to me, his hand still out stretched. In response Jacob's chest rumbled with a low growl, a warning.  
"You mean the world to me, Dad. I love you, all of you." My voice was hardly a whisper, and I was shaking. I pressed myself closer to Jacob's warm body and clutched his arm. "But, Jacob is everything. I can't live without him anymore. It's tearing me apart." I felt hot tears snaking down my cheeks. It was breaking my heart to deny my father, but my entire existence was hanging in balance. I could not go on wildly spinning off kilter. I needed Jacob to survive.

"Renesmee, if you…" He stopped abruptly, his eyes hardening once more. "If you choose this mongrel over your family, then there is nothing I can do for you. Do you understand that? We cannot protect you, and we cannot…" His voice cracked, and his eyes closed. "Accept you in our lives." His gaze flitted to Jacob's hard face. "You must choose. Your family or him." My father's words seemed to echo in the small meadow. I had known such a choice was inevitable, but that knowledge did not lessen the blow of it. I raised my brown eyes to meet my father's.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. My hand slid down Jacob's arm and I laced my fingers with his. Even with this simple contact my heart rate evened out and I felt relief. My dad's face was a chaotic mixture of rage, disbelief, anguish, and resignation.

"Jacob," the unfamiliar voice from the trees boomed out again. "You know of the New Treaty." I glanced up at Jacob's face, his jaw was flexing. "This Cullen bloodsucker is forbidden from trespassing into our lands. Even if she has abandoned her family." I frowned slightly, I had not considered this. Jacob's face was unreadable; he showed no emotion what so ever.

"I am aware of the stipulations of the New Treaty," Jacob's voice was almost a growl.

"Then you are aware of what will happen if you choose to accept her as your mate. You forfeit your position in the tribe and the pack. A wolf is nothing without his pack." The booming voice had a distinct edge of warning and sadness.

"Yes." Jacob breathed. "But I am less than nothing without her." He turned to me, his dark eyes sad and pleading. He raised the hand that was intertwined with mine and brushed my cheek. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. The reality of the situation hit me like a wrecking ball. Jacob and I were going to be alone. If we chose to be together, we were also choosing a life apart from everyone else we had ever loved. But to be separated from one another was far worse. It wasn't a life at all. It would be a living death.

I turned back to my father and gave him a small smile. I did not trust him to not grab me and run, so I could not approach or embrace him one last time. But I wanted to. Despite his arrogant and stubborn anger, he was still my father. And I loved him.

My head snapped to the side when I heard a rustling of underbrush. A white and mahogany brown streak came towards me at high speed. A pair of cold, pale arms curled around my neck. My mother. She hugged me fiercely, and I inhaled her distinctly floral scent. It would be my last chance to do so. I felt my mother's fingers delicately running through my hair; her body was shaking with tears she would never be able to shed. I let her have her moment.

When she finally pulled back from me, she looked into my brown eyes with her golden ones.

"I understand," she whispered, her cool breath swirling around my face. "I love you." My mother brought me into her embrace once more, and I relished it. I closed my eyes and felt her withdraw and then her marble lips pressed to my forehead. My mother gazed up at Jacob and once again she looked as if she would cry, if her vampire body would allow it. "I'm so sorry, Jake." Her words were choked and her hand flew to cover her mouth. My beautiful mother looked into my eyes one last time before joining my father on the other side of the meadow.

Jacob took my hand in his, and I felt his lips brush against my ear as he whispered,

"We have to go now Nessie." I silently nodded, glancing at my parents once more. For the last time, I memorized their unchanging faces. Jacob squeezed my hand slightly; I turned to follow him into the trees. And we ran.

-o-o-o-o

The old stories tell of a rogue wolf and his immortal lover. Together they roam the mountains and forests. It is rumored that on the rare nights when there is not a single cloud in the sky, when all the stars are laid out for mortal men to see, the distant howling of the wolf can be heard. A low keening echoes through the trees as he chases after his lover through the night. Some claim to have caught a glimpse of her auburn curls unfurling behind her like wisps of fire on the breeze, as she races across the forest floor. Never changing, never ceasing. As my father once said,

"The Quileutes have a long memory…"

**Author's Note:**

> Originally beta'd by PTB, and later by jkane180.


End file.
